Sign-In
Cart
Unguessed Kinships: Naturalism and the Geography of Hope in Cormac McCarthy
Paperback
Series: Studies in American Literary Realism and Naturalism
Currently unavailable to order
Please enter your email and a message will be sent to you when this product becomes available on our website.
ISBN13: 9780817361099
Publisher: University Alabama Press
Published: Apr 25 2023
Pages: 194
Weight: 0.65
Height: 0.63 Width: 5.91 Depth: 8.90
Language: English
Literary naturalism at play in one of America's most visionary novelists: Cormac McCarthy
It took six novels and nearly thirty years for Cormac McCarthy to find commercial success with the National Book Award-winning All the Pretty Horses, followed by major prizes, more best sellers, and Hollywood adaptations of his work. Those successes, though, have obscured McCarthy's commitment to an older form of literary expression: naturalism.
It is hardly a secret that McCarthy's work tends to darker themes: violence, brutality, the cruel indifference of nature, themes which would not be out of place in the writing of Jack London or Stephen Crane. But literary naturalism is more than the oversimplified Darwinism that many think of. Nature may be red in tooth and claw, and humans are part of nature, but the humanity depicted in naturalist literature is capable of love, selflessness, and spirituality, as well.
In Unguessed Kinships, Steven Frye illuminates all these dimensions of McCarthy's work. In his novels and plays, McCarthy engages both explicitly and obliquely with the project of manifest destiny, in the western drama Blood Meridian, the Tennessee Valley Authority-era Tennessee novels, and the atomic frontier of Alamogordo in Cities of the Plain. McCarthy's concerns are deeply religious and philosophical, drawing on ancient Greek philosophy, Gnosticism, and Nietzsche, among other sources. Frye argues for McCarthy not merely as a naturalist writer but as a naturalist in the most expansive sense. Unguessed Kinships includes biographical and historical context in each chapter, widening the appeal of the text to not just naturalists or McCarthy scholars but anyone studying the literature of the South or the West.
Also in
Literary Criticism
Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times
Sachs, Aaron
Hardcover
Queer Faith: Reading Promiscuity and Race in the Secular Love Tradition
Sanchez, Melissa E.
Paperback
Ancient Rome at the Cinema: Story and Spectacle in Hollywood and Rome
Theodorakopoulos, Elena
Paperback
How to Be a Cat: (Cat Books for Kids, Cat Gifts for Kids, Cat Picture Book)
Swerling, Lisa
Lazar, Ralph
Hardcover
Hidden Hemingway: Inside the Ernest Hemingway Archives of Oak Park
Cirino, Mark
Elder
Vetch, Aaron
Hardcover
Dante's Vita Nuova, New Edition: A Translation and an Essay
Alighieri, Dante
Pitavy, Francois
Paperback
How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines (Large Print Edition)
Foster, Thomas C.
Paperback
Much ADO about Nothing: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Shakespeare, William
Sparknotes
Paperback
Twelfth Night: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Sparknotes
Shakespeare, William
Paperback
Penelope's Bones: A New History of Homer's World Through the Women Written Out of It
Hauser, Emily
Paperback
Romeo and Juliet: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Sparknotes
Shakespeare, William
Paperback
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
Saunders, George
Paperback
Mythology (75th Anniversary Illustrated Edition): Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes
Hamilton, Edith
Hardcover
Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise
Rundell, Katherine
Hardcover
Mean Dads for a Better America: The Generous Rewards of an Old-Fashioned Childhood
Shillue, Tom
Paperback
The Language of the Night: Essays on Writing, Science Fiction, and Fantasy
Le Guin, Ursula K.
Paperback
But Have You Read the Book? Romance Edition: 40 Love Stories That Inspired Our Favorite Films
Lopez, Kristen
Hardcover
Jane Austen's Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend
Romney, Rebecca
Paperback
Women of the Fairy Tale Resistance: The Forgotten Founding Mothers of the Fairy Tale and the Stories That They Spun
Harrington, Jane
Hardcover
Somewhere, a Boy and a Bear: A. A. Milne and the Creation of Winnie-The-Pooh
Brandreth, Gyles
Hardcover
A Midsummer Night's Dream: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Sparknotes
Shakespeare, William
Paperback
Julius Caesar: No Fear Shakespeare Side-By-Side Plain English
Shakespeare, William
Sparknotes
Paperback
The Odyssey: An Illustrated Guide: A Character-By-Character Guide to the Story of Odysseus
Metzger, Doug
Hardcover
The Jane Austen Insult Guide for Well-Bred Women: Serving Tea with a Side of Scorn
Reed, Emily
Hardcover
The Dream Factory: London's First Playhouse and the Making of William Shakespeare
Swift, Daniel
Hardcover
The New Lifetime Reading Plan: The Classical Guide to World Literature, Revised and Expanded
Major, John S.
Fadiman, Clifton
Paperback
The Greek Tragedies: Seventeen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides
Aeschylus
Sophocles
Euripides
Paperback
Darkness Becomes Bright: On the Brief Life and Immortal Art of Edgar Allan Poe
Ogden, Emily
Hardcover
Trace Elements: Conversations on the Project of Science Fiction and Fantasy
Walton, Jo
Palmer, Ada
Hardcover
A Treacherous Secret Agent: How Literature Spoke Truth to Power During the Red Scare
Garber, Marjorie
Hardcover
Taylor Swift by the Book: The Literature Behind the Lyrics, from Fairy Tales to Tortured Poets
Tatreau, Tiffany
Feder, Rachel
Hardcover